


Something of the Cat About You

by chiaroscuroverse



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Cats, F/M, Fluff, Romance, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-05-12
Packaged: 2019-05-05 22:52:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14628725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiaroscuroverse/pseuds/chiaroscuroverse
Summary: "What do you want to live like, Doctor?" A story of cats and denial.





	Something of the Cat About You

**Author's Note:**

> For @singularmoment - one of our ficlet winners in @doctorroseficreclists 1K Milestone Celebration (prompt at end)

Three times. Three times his lips had been this close to her lips, and he had yet to touch them. But he was about to give in. She glowed pink from the latest run-for-their-lives, wisps of hair loose around her face, beads of sweat on her forehead and under her eyes, and a triumphant smile that grazed across his cheek. 

Rose puckered slightly as she bussed the corner of his mouth. Blood rushed to his face. He leaned away from her and her eyes rose to his and widened at what she found there. His hand plunged into the back of her hair and he pushed her against the TARDIS door with his thighs. Her loud exhale nearly made his second heart stop, and he skimmed his other hand under the bottom of her flowing skirt. 

Slowly then, he brought his head down, eyes on her mouth to make his intent clear. She whispered, “Doctor” in the moment before he touched them, the softness to be taken and claimed for his own…

But she jumped and squealed in a completely different way than he expected, and her hands pushed on his chest. Confused but backing off instantly, he felt his heart twist in horror that he’d made a terrible mistake. Rose was...hopping? And looking around at the ground. 

“Something touched me!” 

“I-I’m sorry, I--” he lifted his offending hand, fingertips still tingling from the taste of soft skin.

She stopped and gave him a quizzical look, before grinning and grabbing his hand to kiss it softly. “Not _you_ , numpty, I mean something, like you know, an alien or a killer vine or--

There was a loud meow. 

“A cat!” 

The creature sat at the corner of the TARDIS--the Doctor saw red eyeshine in the double-moonlight. 

“Hi, kitty, you scared me to death.” Rose approached it slowly and the tiny cat met her halfway and wound intently around her legs. “Bare ankles. Y’know,” she said to the Doctor with a shrug. 

He knew. 

“Now, shoo, we’re busy!” She fixed the Doctor with a tongue-touched look (that made his trousers move) and extended her hand. He was calculating a trajectory that would get his legs inside hers and her hands pressed against the TARDIS, when the cat walked between them again, mewing loudly. He glared at it, before an alarm tingled up his spine. 

“Rose…”

“Ohh, you’re just a baby, aren’t you?” She bent to pet it, and her skirt riding high momentarily distracted him. “Now where’s your mummy-kitty, hmm?” 

“Rose, listen to me very carefully and step away from that creature.” 

She frowned. “Wha-?”

“There are no cats on this planet!” 

“Well, then he must be abandoned somehow! And probably hungry.” Rose scratched behind the kitten’s ears.

“Maybe. Or maybe it’s not what it seems. There are trickster species--I have enemies--”

“Ha! You think this an evil kitten? Enemies! Oh, my God, Doctor.” She picked it up. 

He crossed his arms. 

“Doctor, if there are no other cats, we can’t leave ‘im here to die in the wilderness! Let’s find him something to eat. An’ we could...take him home to the estate?”

“We are _not_ taking that thing onto my ship.” The heat pumping out of his skin made his jacket bothersome and his fingers twitch, and the unsatisfied itch to keep touching Rose flashed into irritation. 

“Well, then I’m not going anywhere either!” she snapped back. She cuddled the kitten and smooched the top of its head. 

“Will you at least let me scan it for diseases if you’re gonna get up close and personal?” 

“Won’t the TARDIS scan automatically if we take ‘im inside?” 

He pursed his lips and considered the likely outcomes of this particular argument.

“Fine, then, have it your way.”

“What, really?” She smiled brightly again. “Here I was spoilin’ for a fight!”

He stepped closer and drew a finger down her cheek. “Didn’t really want to _fight_ with you right about now.” He was pleased when her eyelids fluttered shut. “C’mon, let’s get this over with.” 

She looked so delighted while muttering nonsense to the kitten it made his heart clench. Why bother trying to deny her anything she wants? 

They stepped into the TARDIS and she ran ahead to the jumpseat and dropped the kitten onto it. It curled up, a ball of gray fluff, looking even smaller inside the console room. 

“Ohh, look at him! He’s so beautiful! He is a he, right? Jus’ seemed like it to me.” 

The Doctor pulled the sonic from his pocket and made a quick scan. “Yeah, you’re right.” 

Rose cocked her head. “Does he look a little familiar to you?” She started to giggle. “The fur, the eyes--” She covered her mouth and doubled over and more laughter bubbled up until she finally let out: “His stickin’ out ears!” 

He stared. “Are you...sayin’ what I think you are?” 

“He looks like your little cat son!” 

“Oi!”

“Come to think of it, you’re a lot like a cat.”

“I will have you know, Rose--” 

“What can we feed him?” She cut him off, wiping her eyes. “There’s cans of tuna, right? S’pose we’ll need somethin’ for a litterbox…” 

“Well, I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.” He leaned into the sarcastic tone, but couldn’t help the corners of his mouth turning up. 

“Oh, I am!” 

He sighed. “There’s a room--second hallway past the galley, turn right, third door on the left. You’ll find what you need in there. No questions!” 

She ran off, and the Doctor turned back to the kitten and glowered. “Why don’t you tell me why you really came here tonight?” 

The kitten’s blue eyes blinked back at him, but it didn’t so much as meow this time. 

“Oh, keeping quiet, are we? I’ve seen this before, and whatever’s going on, you’ll get a lot better result if you just ask. Specially if your _appearance_ is some kind of lure...” He trailed off as he circled the sonic around, examined it with a frown, then sat and waved it again only to get the same results.

“So that’s it then, is it?” The cat nuzzled into a seam in the leather, then hopped onto his legs. “What are you hangin’ on me for? Best wait for Rose to come back.” 

The kitten merely turned in a circle and settled down in the hollow of the Doctor’s legs and began to purr. The Doctor stared at the hall but failed to make Rose appear. “At least she called you beautiful, if she’s gonna make _comparisons_.” The kitten’s nose bopped against his fingers before he realized he was petting his little head. “Interrupted a moment, you did. No tellin’ what would have happened.” 

Well, he knew what he wanted to have happen. Even after three _almosts_ they’d never talked about it. He knew enough about humans, and Rose in particular, to know he’d excited her with what they’d started. Maybe he could just follow that thread, see where it leads, or maybe--

“What say you, kitty, should I tell her? Just...say it?” 

The kitten opened his eyes and meowed. The Doctor picked him up, held his small face nose to nose, and gave him a playful wiggle. 

“You think so? Just like that? Rose Tyler, I--” 

A muffled sound came from the corridor and he turned to find Rose leaning on the doorway watching him. He jumped up, tucking the kitten to his chest. “Oh! Um, did you find it?”

“Yeah, yeah I did.” She paused and opened her mouth, then closed it without speaking. She raised a small contraption by a long handle and and took a deep breath. “Actual cat food and a feeder, which you _have_ for some reason.” She pushed off the door. 

He shrugged. “Long story.”

“Mm-hmm. Somebody’s in denial about being a cat person.” She arranged the feeder on the grating.

“Nine hundred years. Been a lot of things, me.” His eyes followed Rose as she stood back up. He could see the pulse jumping in her neck. “True, sometimes in denial about them.” The kitten scrabbled in his hands, and he set him down to go to the food. 

“Oh?” Outside on the planet, in the city, Rose had been wired on adrenaline and overflowing with confidence when she teased him, silently dared him, while they ran home. Now he could see the tremble in her hands as she pushed her hair back, and the vulnerability in her eyes that made him want to keep her in the circle of his arms until the last star in the universe burned out. 

He held out his hands. “I don’t want to live like that anymore.” 

She came to him and he enveloped her, settled his face in her hair, drank her in. She kissed his collarbone and slipped her fingers through the hairs at the back of his neck, making him shiver. “What do you want to live like, Doctor?”

“I want to _be_ with you.”

“You will. ‘M never gonna leave you.”

“Shh, don’t talk like that. Be with me today. And tomorrow. And we’ll figure out the rest later.” 

“Doctor--”

He lifted her chin and lowered his lips to hers ( _finally...finally_ ), and drank in her muffled sounds of enjoyment when he tasted her tongue. “Is that what you want?” he asked, when she broke away to gasp. 

She dropped her head back and smiled at him, flushed and properly rumpled. “Why don’t you stay with me tonight?”

His grin stretched wider than ever. “Okay.” He kissed her a few more times for good measure, then looked around. “Where’d ‘e go?”

Rose dropped to her knees next to the console. “Hey, baby? You wanna come out of there?” 

He bent to look. The kitten had tucked himself into a tiny alcove in the base of the console, eyes closed and tail wrapped around himself. “I dunno, looks pretty content. Maybe we can let the TARDIS take it from here? She’ll lead him to the box when he needs it, or to us.” 

The console lights pulsed twice and dimmed. Rose laughed. “Well! Maybe she’s claimin’ him for herself! Probably thinks a new cat will fit in perfectly around here too.” 

“You’re dreamin’, the pair of you. As if you just wink at me an’ I’ll let animals live here.” 

“I’ll just have to see if I can change your mind.” Her voice was back to the airy teasing that made his heart race. 

“Sounds like a threat, Rose Tyler.” He’d never been so delighted to be so helpless. 

She pulled on his hands and backed toward the hallway, face alight with joy. “You’ll find out!”

_~fin~_

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt was: "Why don't you tell me why you really came here tonight?"  
> Invaluable help as always by Fleurdeneuf :D


End file.
